I have around £400-£500 to spend and was wondering what the general consensus is? Do I have enough decent parts to reuse, i.e. Case, GPU, PSU and RAM etc to add to the Intel CPU and MOBO that I will have to buy, or should I save a bit more to replace any of those that I had planned on reusing? I would like to see some improvement when playing games (BF3, Skyrim etc) and would like something that could be upgraded in the future. I wouldn't want to spend £400 for negligible improvement.

Or………… should I just stick a new AMD CPU (And maybe some more RAM?) in my rig for the time being? And if so, which one?! Any advice would be appreciated!

Re: Switch from AMD to Intel?

Originally Posted by opel80uk

I would like to see some improvement when playing games (BF3, Skyrim etc) and would like something that could be upgraded in the future.

Skyrim needs Intel to play at the highest settings unfortunately, just due to the weird engine that needs fast single threaded performance. However, I wouldn't say this is indicative of most games, and the difference between Ultra settings and 'merely' High is almost unnoticeable.

Otherwise most games are still going to be GPU dependant, and I expect your current CPU will be enough to feed the GPU for some time yet (especially if you utilise the easy overclocking). So if you want to improve performance overclock your CPU and buy a 7970 when they come out next January

Longer term upgrade when your CPU doesn't cut it anymore, by which time the next chips from Intel and AMD will be out and you'll be able to make a more accurate assessment as to best value for money.

Re: Switch from AMD to Intel?

Originally Posted by opel80uk

So realistically, to play games like Skyrim on High settings (Which will do me fine TBH) I don't need to do anything just yet?

I think you should be OK - I don't have experience of that particular CPU - you might get slow downs in cities but you should be able to tweak the sliders to get an enjoyable experience - you can probably increase others and add more image quality stuff too.

Try it and report back. Then if not happy try some simple overclocking.

Re: Switch from AMD to Intel?

Thanks Kalniel,

I had a go yesterday, and it runs it pretty well on High settings. Not getting much slowdown at all, albeit with the sliders decreased slightly on almost everything, although it’s still an impressive looking game as it is.